Unmeltable, Uncrushable: The Holy Grail in Painkillers

By

Timothy W. Martin and

Jonathan D. Rockoff

Updated May 5, 2013 9:18 p.m. ET

The arms race to build a safer painkiller is under way.

In the wake of a key decision by the Food and Drug Administration, more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies—from startups to Pfizer Inc.—are vying to create painkilling drugs that are difficult to abuse.

The FDA moved last month to block the manufacture and sale of generic versions of the original OxyContin, which has gone off patent but which is easier to abuse than...